A reader and writer fooling with words

Teeny Weeny

All things small are on my mind this week as I begin a new crocheting for charity project with my local Knit and Natter Group. We’re making hats, socks, and cardigans for premature babies as part of a campaign by the Irish Premature Babies Charity until October 2012. I made my first hat on Wednesday, it’s for a baby of about 3 pounds in weight and it is teeny weeny.

To give you some perspective, my kids were 7 pounds pounds when they were born at full term. But premature babies can be born as tiny as one pound and comparable in length to a ballpoint pen. And they get cold, hence the woolly hats. But it wasn’t until I saw the size of my hat that I had an inkling of just how vulnerable these tiny creatures are.

I tried to think of a small word for today’s blog. Miniscule sprang to mind but my thesaurus had a few more – diminutive, imperceptible, infinitesimal, insignificant, lilliputian, microscopic, miniature, minute, negligible, wee, unimportant.

Two things strike me about that list. One is that mini is a prefix to make things smaller (apparently coming from Latin “minium” a red lead used for tiny pictures in manuscripts). The second is that small is somehow seen as lacking in importance.

This doesn’t impress me. I’m not exactly tall and I’m taking it personally. I believe those teeny weeny babies that will wear my wee hats are children battling for life and love. They are far from insignificant.